Climate Change: How many climate warnings do we need?

Millions of people marched yesterday demanding immediate action to try to avert climate collapse proportionate to the threat that catastrophe poses to our civilisation’s survival. Whether the world’s governments — especially those in America, China, and India — stir themselves from their stupor and respond is, amazingly, still an open question.

Several thousands of those marchers, mostly students, marched in Dublin, Cork, and Belfast. Some did so in defiance of school authorities, which suggests a startling lack of awareness around the reality facing us in our schools.

In Berlin’s Klimastreik 100,000 marched. Some of the first protests were in Australia, where 300,000 people gathered at more than 100 rallies. Marches also took place in Hong Kong, Thailand, and India.

This is a truly global movement and a truly global moment. It seems impossible to imagine that it will not generate, belatedly, the kind of momentum needed to confront this crisis — one that expresses itself in all too many ways.

On the eve of the marches, Minister for the Marine Michael Creed was forced to close the Celtic Sea herring fishery because once-abundant stocks — The Bonny Shoals of Herring — have collapsed. Though not directly linked to climate collapse, this seems another example of our misuse of natural resources, especially our seas and our failure to protect them properly. How many warnings do we need?